12 Years a Slave & Nebraska Lead 2014 Indie Spirit Noms; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints & Mother of George Snubbed

Team Fox Searchlight should be returning to the winner’s circle at the next edition of the Indie Spirits awards. After winning with Black Swan three years back, and losing out in the Best Feature category with Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Descendants, Fox Searchlight’s 12 Years a Slave leads all other films with seven nominations Best Feature, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and three of the four acting categories. Alexander Payne’s Nebraska follows with six noms. Both Sundance (Fruitvale Station) and SXSW (Short Term 12) winners figure among the noms, but they weren’t as plentiful with only three noms a piece. Among our favorite titles for 2013 which were left off the scorecard, David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Andrew Dosunmu’s Mother of George Saints got no recognition, while Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love would have got my vote for the Annual Someone To Watch Award. Awards will be handed out on March 1st – below you’ll find the noms, our commentary and snubbed listings are coming shortly.

Best Feature12 Years a SlaveAll Is Lost Francis Ha Inside Llewyn Davis Nebraska

Eric Lavallée is the founder, editor-in-chief and film critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric splits his time between his home base in Montreal, NYC, and is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. Top Films From Contemporary Film Auteurs:
Almodóvar (Talk to Her), Coen Bros. (Fargo), Dardennes (La Promesse), Haneke (Caché), Hsiao-Hsien (Three Times), Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love), Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry), Lynch (Mulholland Dr.), Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho), von Trier (Breaking the Waves)

Lance Edmands (Bluebird)
“We discussed how much of the look would be inspired by this era, the last time people really had the money to renovate things. The house that the main family lives in was totally empty and falling apart when we picked it.”
Read more